Saturday, August 20, 2016

I’ve lived most of my
life in Michigan, but only last week did I really visit the Upper Peninsula.

I saw Lake Superior for
the first time, which means that I have now finally seen all the Great Lakes.

My girls on the shore of Lake Superior

My family and I took a
boat cruise on Lake Superior, that great, cold, inland sea. We saw cliffs
streaked with ancient mineral stains, worn by wind and waves. We hiked to see
waterfalls (so many waterfalls!) We ate pasties, the hand-held savory pies
beloved in the UP, brought there by Cornish immigrants who worked the copper
mines generations ago.

Lakeside cliffs in Painted Rocks National Lakeshore

Waterfalls in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

I’m reminded, again, of
the treasures we have in America in our national and state parks, in the areas
set aside for conservation. The UP is protected forest and lakeshore; blue
waters and empty beaches; lighthouses and tiny, picturesque towns.

Also, the UP has great food--always a consideration with my food-obsessed family. "Do they have rice up there?" I joked the day we left, shoveling a bowlful of rice down. It's true that there's not much in the way of "ethnic" dining in the little towns there. But there's fresh lake trout, whitefish, and perch. There are restaurants with great steaks and meatloaf and mashed potatoes. And the aforementioned pasties, with rich, buttery crusts enclosing beef and potatoes (The best we had were at The Bear Trap restaurant in Shingleton). And indeed, I had a dish of grilled whitefish with jasmine rice in a hip little restaurant in downtown Munising.

***

While on vacation
I finished a book that's been on my nightstand for a while:Strange Tales from a Chinese Studioby Pu Songling. It is indeed a
collection of strange tales: marvelous, elaborate fairy tales; odd vignettes
and anecdotes, some only a page long; morality tales and descriptive fragments.
They were written by a gentleman-scholar in 17th century China. In the Penguin
Classic edition, translated by John Minford, the stories speak in an
exquisitely mannered, delicate, elegant voice. Fox spirits and ghosts vie for
the lives of hapless scholars; Taoist monks perform miracles; lovers return
from the grave to meet in life after life. There's subtle (and not so subtle)
humor and melancholy. Alongside the delicacy of the prose is a sexual
forthrightness which utterly scandalized early English translators (and which
is responsible for much of the most memorable humor). Yet for all the drama of
these tales, they had a strangely calming effect on my heart. I'm evidently not
the only person to feel this. The Penguin Classic edition containsdetailed notes on the history of these tales, including thoughts
from the early 19th century commentator Feng Zhenluan:

All my life I have
enjoyed reading the Records of the Grand Historian and
the History of the Han Dynasty. But only the Strange Tales dispel
oppression.

Pu Songling came of age
during troubled times, during the transition between the Ming and Manchu
dynasties. It was a time of periodic rebellions and brutal imperial
suppression. Yet his stories—for all their often dark turns—somehow dispel
oppression; they offer a glimpse into a lost world (did it ever really exist?) of exquisite culture and beauty and refinement,
a world where a scholar and his ghost-lover might spend their nights together
reciting poetry and playing the mandolin.

There are no wars in my privileged area of the world, no violent end to dynasty. Yet this time also feels unsettled; a free-floating anxiety beats it wings. The election-year madness seems to threaten ever more to tip into true insantiy, and it feels as though we live in the opening chapter of a dystopian, apocalyptic novel. I'm drawn irresistably to the newspaper headlines, for all that I know they only feed my anxiety. I take walks; I read; I spend time with my family. In the unspoiled Upper Peninsula of Michigan, I walked through lush forests and saw the blues of three Great Lakes.

And amidst the miracles
of the natural world, it’s another kind of miracle to think of how, across language
and culture and the space of three centuries, Pu Songling’s strange tales bring
their strange comfort to an age he surely never could have imagined.

Friday, August 5, 2016

So it's real. My little book came out and my publisher sent me three copies and I can hold them in my hand and put them on my shelf and coo over the cover and layout and my words in print on real paper. It's a real book, y'all. My hardworking publisher lined up advance readers and bloggers and the reviews are beyond what I expected. As I said to her in an e-mail earlier today, readers are getting it. That makes me so happy. And there are giveaways for this book, too!Annorlunda Books has arranged for a Goodreads giveaway. One print copy will be given away, and you have until Aug 12 to enter. Click here for more info.Vicky at the book review blog, Books and Strips, was kind enough to interview me and also host a giveaway of the ebook version for us. Click here for the interview and an introduction to her lovely blog.The blog Rope and Tire also had a lovely review.

My gratitude to all who have bought the book, mentioned it on social media, retweeted the announcements, read it, or read and then left a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or elsewhere. I am so gratified by the support from both writer and non-writer friends, and even from complete strangers. It's honestly taken me by surprise. Thank you, all.And in the theme of self-promotion, one last thing. My cyberpunk-on-a-surfboard story, "The Wave" (very different from The Lilies of Dawn!) appeared in The Future Fire magazine last month. Last week, The Future Fire interviewed me about the story, and you can read the interview here.